Cleaning Up the Fencerow

In South Louisiana hard jobs are best left to a brief sliver of time when the temperature is bearable.  This weekend was one of those weekends.  My To Do List has been cluttered by an item that I kept putting off and it was high time to scratch it off the list.  I'm talking about cleaning up the fencerow that borders the south perimeter of our property. 

Just over the property line is a wooded area that we don't own.  It is a jungle of sorts - filled with Live Oak trees, China Berry trees, Chinese tallow trees, Willow trees, and finally, privet.  Privet is in the ligustrum family and bears small white flowers in the spring.  The other thing they do is take over the land.  If you turn your head for five minutes, its encroached upon your land. 

Every couple of years I have to sharpen my ax and machete, put on gloves, and clean the privet out.  I have an electric wire that runs along the perimeter fence powered by a solar charger.  I tie into that wire to run cross-wires to partition the pasture into 7 paddocks to control the cows' grazing.  The doggone privet will grow into the fence, touching the wires and grounding out the electrical current.

Here is a look of the overgrown fencerow after I began chopping and had gotten about a third of it cleaned up:  You can see how overgrown the fencerow has become.

As I chop the privet, I toss the branches over for the cows and goats to eat.  They really like to eat it.  The photo below shows the third of the fencerow that was cleaned.

I try to clear out an area roughly five yards wide to provide a buffer zone to my back fence.  I do realize I am on my neighbor's property, but they are absentee owners and if I didn't do this job every couple of years, my fence would be in ruin.  I've learned that if you merely chop the privet at ground level, many shoots of new growth sprout from the trunk as if angered by the chopping and proliferate toward our property with a vengeance.  My technique involves chopping below the ground surface to clip the roots, and then pull the plant up.

I'm not going to sit idly by as the privet moves forward.  Chop!  Chop! Chop!  As I go I pick up fallen trees and throw them back into the forest.  I can see animal trails in the fencerow where countless nocturnal animals travel.  I'm sure one of those travelers was the possum I killed in the hen house the other night.  You can see below that I am three-quarters of the way done.

At last I made the final chop, opening up the overgrown fencerow.

I backed up and took a photo from the beginning of the fence to the end.  You can compare the first photo of this post to the last and see what a difference it makes.  Oh, that is the hen house in the foreground.

It looks nice, but as with anything, it takes maintenance.  In another couple of years, I'll be out doing this same job once more.  Privet doesn't sleep.  As I type this, privet is out there re-grouping, plotting, strategizing to launch an offensive and lay siege to our fence.  We will stay watchful and vigilant against the onslaught of the privet.